Oligarchy

75th installment to my philosophical system.

The Iranian Envoy Mirza Mohammad-Reza Qazvini meeting with Napoleon I at the Finckenstein Palace, 27 April 1807, to sign the Treaty of Finckenstein. François Mulard.

People today hear the term “oligarchy” thrown around a lot, but I suspect very few have any idea what it really means. I suppose the best approach to it is to confront it as directly and honestly as possible.

All nations are oligarchies. If by oligarchy we here mean what it has always meant—rule by the few—then by definition there has never not been an oligarchy throughout history. Even before the formation of civilizations, there were hierarchies of power: tribal leaders and bands of men who convinced whole tribes to go along with them—either through force, cunning, or brilliance. We see in nature, too, the natural tendency for things to become oligarchic: wolf packs, ant and bee colonies, hyena clans, etc. Everywhere we look in the world, we see undeniable evidence of things being ruled by a smaller and smaller number.

In the context of a nation, it only makes sense that there would be such a vast amount of power held in only the hands of a few. The more complex an institution is, the more it needs to be bureaucratized in order to become manageable at all. Administrative bloat is a necessary byproduct of increasing complexity—complexity, that is, within a system that becomes more and more ambitious with respect to how much power it wants to command. This is the system which all developed (First World) nations have mastered, and as a result, have completely controlled and spread throughout the world—spreading the virtues of top-down authority and increasing misery piled atop the people underneath.

America is the zenith of this, though its progress has been furthered along in Japan and South Korea far more than anywhere else; as a result, it has given those countries the reputation of being intolerably competitive and extremely nepotistic—which always carries with it its two inevitable companions: ignorance and hivemindedness. The stereotype regarding Asians in this respect, I’m sorry to say, is absolutely true: they’re the most conforming, agreeable, nonargumentative, unimaginative, sterile, boring, stiff-toed, uptight, narrow-minded people in human history; and this stems from their general conservatism. For this reason, capitalism functions very well in Asia, and the people—more willing to make the best out of a bad situation than actually change the system overall—will forever be subject to it until they collectively change their attitudes in accordance with their material conditions.

Capitalist nations are where oligarchy tends to flourish the most, not in the least because life under capitalism is controlled largely by asset managers—people whose entire lives revolve around accruing more wealth for themselves while leaving the rest behind, staring at a stock ticker hoping for it to increase indefinitely. It’s revolting when you think about it: whole fortunes which dominate entire governmental apparatuses. Their wealth isn’t even in real assets; it’s situated entirely in speculative bubbles which only perpetuate financialization, driven solely by greed, and made the highest value because wealth is seen as the only form of power worth fawning over today.

What kind of world is it where the most “powerful” (wealthy) are actually the weakest where morals are concerned? The wealthy today are, without question, the most herd-like and life-denying people in all of human history. And I’m not just talking about degenerates like Epstein; I mean the entire 1% as a whole. The whole lot of them are corrupt to the core and have become inhuman for the sake of making themselves feel more than human—in truth, to call them “human, all too human” would really be an insult to the miserable wretch that man is, for at least the average man has desires outside of world domination and total depravity. The rich have the morals of Macbeth: ambitious, power-hungry, scheming, domineering, spiteful, lustful, etc. And like Macbeth, too, after obtaining power they’re constantly in fear, always worried, never sure of anything, and dread most of all a loss in their power—all this accumulates into a desire to make power the only moral, where morals revert to what they were before civilization: strictly instinctual and primitive.

What does all this indicate? Only their truest intentions. To become so powerful they can impose their morality on the world so domineeringly that their will becomes the new overriding drive that all follow on account of its force, and force alone. In a sense, they want to do what Jesus did, but instead of through a gradual spread and adoption by the people, they want to impose it from the top, just like the oligarchs they are. And to think, these people are praised by the herd on account of their wealth alone. The power they wield stems from that moral evaluation—a sickly, weak, life-denying evaluation that stems from projection on account of the herd’s weakness. The herd is impressed by the wealthy because they would like to be wealthy themselves. Every value held by the majority today is really a desire to support ideals which they themselves would like to obtain and break at will, just like the powerful do.

Power for the wealthy today is really an abstraction, for their goals are not actionable; they do not want to act, but rather want to amass so much wealth, so much power, that they retroactively create the world after their own image. What they really want is to become like a god—but not in the ancient sense like Alexander the Great or an Egyptian pharaoh; rather, they want the herd to subconsciously adopt their values instead of developing their own, in that sense gaining complete control over how reality is considered. What they’re after is a reevaluation of all values—but not for powerful values, rather, only their values, for in their minds their values are the powerful ones. In making this a goal for themselves, they become a slave to their own vision of the world, and in doing so become herd-like themselves; they deny life by making their goal in life to live it out exactly as they envision it.

You see, the instant you make something the point of life, it instantly loses all value; for the drive which compelled it in the first place, now being worked towards and fulfilled in some sense, weakens and desires a new goal as a result. To make power its own end is nothing but vain ambition, and it stupidly follows that line of breadcrumbs straight off a cliff, only to fall right into a sea of troubles—nihilism being the most damning, followed by despair and pointless suffering.

Power is the drive of all values, and so it follows that anyone who is perceived as having a lot of it would necessarily be admired by the stupid, who only know how to follow their immediate instinct when thinking is involved but are more than ready to actually capitulate when reality is concerned. This is what I hate most about modernity: its stupidity. It isn’t the artificiality of it, or the obvious obsession with frivolous and idiotic things like money that annoys me, but it’s the lack of power—the complete and utter capitulation on behalf of everyone to conform and endure and tolerate things that should really bring about revolution that drives me insane. So many people want power but are so lazy and too stupid to actually achieve it that they prefer to admire those who have what they want already.

It’s why Trump was elected. Nobody in their right mind would vote for an overweight moron with no political experience if politics were a rational enterprise. People voted for Trump because Trump represents to them what they themselves wish they were—wealthy, powerful, brash, confident, etc. It’s all vibes-based, irrational, uncritical, illogical, totally moronic, unreasonable, and everything else. Trump was an outsider, and that’s precisely what gave him the edge. Americans know a fake from a phony, and everything after Obama just seemed like a whole lot of nothing—so they went with the candidate that was so out of left field that maybe something positive could be brought about from this new firebrand. Of course, nothing really happened, and, in fact, things have gone from bad to worse since 2016. We’re all now paying for the sins of our ignorance, and, quite frankly, I hope Trump finishes this country off for good already.

America has been a scourge to humanity since World War II, and I think all the devastation we’ve unleashed worldwide with our stupid foreign policy—imperialism, containment, forever wars, globalization, etc.—combined with our disastrous domestic policy—wage stagnation, homelessness, the war on drugs, austerity measures, financialization, unemployment, economic crises, an abysmal education system, etc.—indicates that, in short, we’re the bad guys and have been since 1945. As an American, I have to say there are many things to love about this country—primarily found in our history and in our collective unity around the ideals of freedom and the constitution—but at present, this place offers me very little hope for the future. I don’t like to see a nation as wealthy as ours plagued with all the moral and societal problems that we have. It’s unconscionable, and change is possible, but so long as the oligarchs run things, we will find ourselves forever in this plight.

Returning to oligarchy, though: one of its central principles is that of consolidating power into the hands of a few. Generally, the larger a population, the more top-down rule is needed to ensure everything functions as intended; and so, we have the beginnings of a management apparatus that oversees complex regulatory functions. All of this is assumed outright, and very little is questioned—if any of it is.

In modernity, little is questioned for the sake of conformity. All that is considered is personal: how it could affect the individual personally. It’s a subconscious egoism that’s apparent in nearly everyone living today, and yet very few actually notice it. Naturally, this leads to a populace where the dominating values are those that only feign affability rather than increase power. As I said earlier, nobody really knows how to acquire power today, for their minds are so narrow and unconsciously influenced—either by their material conditions or media consumption—that they seek it in money, or start a family, or resign from the world entirely. And so, with the information landscape being so vast and so accessible, combined with a decrepit, life-denying lens through which everything is viewed and interpreted, of course nobody would be able to create enduring narratives that actually influence people in a positive way.

I never would have thought it possible in the history of the world that there would be such a dearth of meaning—combined with a nearly universal nihilism, tethered to a morose skepticism alongside a vast stupidity—that everyone would default to making their values only those which gratify their selfish impulses. I suppose it could’ve gone no other way, for the most immediate is the easiest to latch onto when nothing else can be used to serve as the foundation for your life; but this, of course, leads them nowhere. For when one acts like this, everywhere they turn they’re met with the same undeniable reality: that the things which are immediate fade away as soon as they’re acquired, and no amount of cycling through desires and passions would ever make them endeared to life on account of them alone.

Kierkegaard spoke of this in his book Either/Or and described it as “crop rotation”—the aesthete’s ultimate method for enjoying life having already experienced what they presumed to be the highest pleasure; they seek life in novelty, and so are in a perpetual rotation of one enjoyment after another, but being fulfilled by nothing permanently. People think the meaning of life is a static thing that, once obtained, they can rest easy on for the rest of their lives, but experience proves to everyone sooner or later that a life lived for the sake of one goal never does anything for them. And so, the goal of life is really made subordinate to whatever it is we feel the goal is in the moment and should be followed in that manner, deliberately.

People today feel the need to subjugate themselves to whatever it is they’re in passion for, and it doesn’t help that these passions are, more often than not, totally foreign to them, and not really desired by them—or, if they are desired, not done with any conviction and certainly not hopped into with ready alacrity. For example, people today start relationships merely for the appearance of being in one, because they feel like it’s a duty. This is merely a societal pressure unconsciously acquired and not given a second thought. Doubt scares fools, and that’s why I can confidently label nine-tenths of the human race as total buffoons in literally everything that doesn’t concern their narrow interests—interests obtained not from any intellectual ratiocination or genuine passion, but from a necessity born out of their material circumstances. This is a type of degrading pragmatism that strips life of everything it’s worth and leaves behind only a crusty shell not even worth glancing at.

This is to say nothing of marriage, which is also mostly done out of compulsion rather than true love; there is no “true love” in reality—anybody who says otherwise is kidding themselves and should stop immediately. Divorce is more common than every couple wants to admit, and the vast majority of couples, having no understanding of how to cooperate with each other that doesn’t become a one-sided affair, always end up in quarrels and petty arguments that neither of them really want to engage in—again, because they haven’t the least clue what the other wants, and less any ability to come to an agreement between their differing values in the moment. Such is why the most successful relationships are those that aren’t founded on love but on friendship and mutual necessity—the sense of not wanting to leave the other because of how well they make you feel in even the smallest and most common gestures. That’s true love.

A large number of people do not forge their own journeys but forgo them for the sake of fitting in; very rarely do people even think for themselves anymore, for anything that is counter to the environment they’re in always exposes them as the odd ones out, and so they suppress their truth in order to come off as more agreeable—stupidity in the highest regard! Oligarchy makes this a necessity in all environments, however, because it feels the need to simplify and reduce all things to their constituent parts in order to make them easier to manage and control. Oligarchy is fundamentally about control, and that’s why every institution falls prey to it eventually—for so long as there’s a need for order and stability, it will be achieved through reduction and simplification—through the method of analysis and exhaustion—minimizing all things to the point of reducing them to atoms, only for them to be recomposited afterwards in a multitude of different branches. It was dubbed the “Iron Law of Oligarchy” for a reason after all. So much for freedom.

Quotes for the reader on Oligarchy from great minds throughout history:

In an oligarchy however it happens often that many, while practicing virtue with regard to the commonwealth, have strong private enmities arising among themselves; for as each man desires to be himself the leader and to prevail in counsels, they come to great enmities with one another, whence arise factions among them, and out of the factions comes murder, and from murder results the rule of one man; and thus it is shown in this instance by how much that is the best. Again, when the people rules, it is impossible that corruption should not arise, and when corruption arises in the commonwealth, there arise among the corrupt men not enmities but strong ties of friendship: for they who are acting corruptly to the injury of the commonwealth put their heads together secretly to do so. And this continues so until at last some one takes the leadership of the people and stops the course of such men. —Herodotus, The History.

CLEINIAS: You mean to say, I suppose, that the best government is produced from a tyranny, and originates in a good lawgiver and an orderly tyrant, and that the change from such a tyranny into a perfect form of government takes place most easily; less easily when from an oligarchy; and, in the third degree, from a democracy: is not that your meaning?

ATHENIAN: Not so; I mean rather to say that the change is best made out of a tyranny; and secondly, out of a monarchy; and thirdly, out of some sort of democracy: fourth, in the capacity for improvement, comes oligarchy, which has the greatest difficulty in admitting of such a change, because the government is in the hands of a number of potentates. I am supposing that the legislator is by nature of the true sort, and that his strength is united with that of the chief men of the state; and when the ruling element is numerically small, and at the same time very strong, as in a tyranny, there the change is likely to be easiest and most rapid. —Plato, Laws, Book IV.

Nor are those things which we have already mentioned alone sufficient to describe these states; for since there are many species both of a democracy and an oligarchy, the matter requires further consideration; as we cannot admit, that if a few persons who are free possess the supreme power over the many who are not free, that this government is a democracy: as in Apollonia, in Ionia, and in Thera: for in each of these cities the honours of the state belong to some few particular families, who first founded the colonies. Nor would the rich, because they are superior in numbers, form a democracy, as formerly at Colophon; for there the majority had large possessions before the Lydian war: but a democracy is a state where the freemen and the poor, being the majority, are invested with the power of the state. An oligarchy is a state where the rich and those of noble families, being few, possess it. —Aristotle, Politics.

Since, then, it is the genius of an aristocracy to allot the larger part of the government to the best citizens, they therefore say, that an oligarchy is chiefly composed of those men who are worthy and honourable: now it seems impossible that where the government is in the hands of the good, there the laws should not be good, but bad; or, on the contrary, that where the government is in the hands of the bad, there the laws should be good; nor is a government well constituted because the laws are, without at the same time care is taken that they are observed; for to enforce obedience to the laws which it makes is one proof of a good constitution in the state-another is, to have laws well calculated for those who are to abide by them; for if they are improper they must be obeyed: and this may be done two ways, either by their being the best relative to the particular state, or the best absolutely. —Ibid.

An oligarchy is also subject to revolutions when the nobility spend their fortunes by luxury; for such persons are desirous of innovations, and either endeavour to be tyrants themselves or to support others in being so, as Hypparinus supported Dionysius of Syracuse. And at Amphipolis one Cleotimus collected a colony of Chalcidians, and when they came set them to quarrel with the rich: and at Aegina a certain person who brought an action against Chares attempted on that account to alter the government. Sometimes they will try to raise commotions, sometimes they will rob the public, and then quarrel with each other, or else fight with those who endeavour to detect them; which was the case at Apollonia in Pontus. But if the members of an oligarchy agree among themselves the state is not very easily destroyed without some external force. Pharsalus is a proof of this, where, though the place is small, yet the citizens have great power, from the prudent use they make of it. An oligarchy also will be destroyed when they create another oligarchy under it; that is, when the management of public affairs is in the hands of a few, and not equally, but when all of them do not partake of the supreme power, as happened once at Elis, where the supreme power in general was in the hands of a very few out of whom a senate was chosen, consisting but of ninety, who held their places for life; and their mode of election was calculated to preserve the power amongst each other’s families, like the senators at Lacedaemon. An oligarchy is liable to a revolution both in time of war and peace; in war, because through a distrust in the citizens the government is obliged to employ mercenary troops, and he to whom they give the command of the army will very often assume the tyranny, as Timophanes did at Corinth; and if they appoint more than one general, they will very probably establish a dynasty: and sometimes, through fear of this, they are forced to let the people in general have some share in the government, because they are obliged to employ them.
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Many revolutions also have been brought about in oligarchies by those who could not brook the despotism which those persons assumed who were in power, as at Cnidus and Chios. Changes also may happen by accident in what we call a free state and in an oligarchy; wheresoever the senators, judges, and magistrates are chosen according to a certain census; for it often happens that the highest census is fixed at first; so that a few only could have a share in the government, in an oligarchy, or in a free state those of moderate fortunes only; when the city grows rich, through peace or some other happy cause, it becomes so little that every one’s fortune is equal to the census, so that the whole community may partake of all the honours of government; and this change sometimes happens by little and little, and insensible approaches, sometimes quicker. These are the revolutions and seditions that arise in oligarchies, and the causes to which they are owing: and indeed both democracies and oligarchies sometimes alter, not into governments of a contrary form, but into those of the same government; as, for instance, from having the supreme power in the law to vest it in the ruling party, or the contrariwise. —Ibid.

That a tyranny contains all that is bad both in a democracy and an oligarchy is evident; with an oligarchy it has for its end gain, as the only means of providing the tyrant with guards and the luxuries of life; like that it places no confidence in the people; and therefore deprives them of the use of arms: it is also common to them both to persecute the populace, to drive them out of the city and their own habitations. With a democracy it quarrels with the nobles, and destroys them both publicly and privately, or drives them into banishment, as rivals and an impediment to the government; hence naturally arise conspiracies both amongst those who desire to govern and those who desire not to be slaves; hence arose Periander’s advice to Thrasybulus to take off the tallest stalks, hinting thereby, that it was necessary to make away with the eminent citizens. We ought then in reason, as has been already said, to account for the changes which arise in a monarchy from the same causes which produce them in other states: for, through injustice received, fear, and contempt, many of those who are under a monarchical government conspire against it; but of all species of injustice, injurious contempt has most influence on them for that purpose: sometimes it is owing to their being deprived of their private fortunes. The dissolution too of a kingdom and a tyranny are generally the same; for monarchs abound in wealth and honour, which all are desirous to obtain. Of plots: some aim at the life of those who govern, others at their government; the first arises from hatred to their persons; which hatred may be owing to many causes, either of which will be sufficient to excite their anger, and the generality of those who are under the influence of that passion will join in a conspiracy, not for the sake of their own advancement, but for revenge. —Ibid.

An oligarchy is also changed into a tyranny; such was the rise of most of the ancient tyrannies in Sicily; at Leontini, into the tyranny of Panaetius; at Gela, into that of Cleander; at Rhegium into that of Anaxilaus; and the like in many other cities. It is absurd also to suppose, that a state is changed into an oligarchy because those who are in power are avaricious and greedy of money, and not because those who are by far richer than their fellow citizens think it unfair that those who have nothing should have an equal share in the rule of the state with themselves, who possess so much-for in many oligarchies it is not allowable to be employed in money-getting, and there are many laws to prevent it. But in Carthage, which is a democracy, money-getting is creditable, and yet their form of government remains unaltered. It is also absurd to say, that in an oligarchy there are two cities, one of the poor and another of the rich; for why should this happen to them more than to the Lacedaemonians, or any other state where all possess not equal property, or where all are not equally good? for though no one member of the community should be poorer than he was before, yet a democracy might nevertheless change into an oligarchy; if the rich should be more powerful than the poor, and the one too negligent, and the other attentive: and though these changes are owing to many causes, yet he mentions but one only, that the citizens become poor by luxury, and paying interest-money; as if at first they were all rich, or the greater part of them: but this is not so, but when some of those who have the principal management of public affairs lose their fortunes, they will endeavour to bring about a revolution; but when others do, nothing of consequence will follow, nor when such states do alter is there any more reason for their altering into a democracy than any other. Besides, though some of the members of the community may not have spent their fortunes, yet if they share not in the honours of the state, or if they are ill-used and insulted, they will endeavour to raise seditions, and bring about a revolution, that they may be allowed to do as they like; which, Plato says, arises from too much liberty. Although there are many oligarchies and democracies, yet Socrates, when he is treating of the changes they may undergo, speaks of them as if there was but one of each sort. —Ibid.

Moreover, as an oligarchy is said to be a government of men of family, fortune, and education; so, on the contrary, a democracy is a government in the hands of men of no birth, indigent circumstances, and mechanical employments. In this state also no office [1318a] should be for life; and, if any such should remain after the government has been long changed into a democracy, they should endeavour by degrees to diminish the power; and also elect by lot instead of vote. These things, then, appertain to all democracies; namely, to be established on that principle of justice which is homogeneous to those governments; that is, that all the members of the state, by number, should enjoy an equality, which seems chiefly to constitute a democracy, or government of the people: for it seems perfectly equal that the rich should have no more share in the government than the poor, nor be alone in power; but that all should be equal, according to number; for thus, they think, the equality and liberty of the state best preserved. —Ibid.

We are told that, when one or more exceptionally rich and prosperous men emerge from the populace, (a despotism or an oligarchy) comes into being as a result of their arrogance and contempt; for the faint-hearted and the weak give way and succumb to the haughtiness of wealth. But if the people would hold fast to their rights, nothing, they say, would be superior in power, liberty, or happiness, inasmuch as they would be in charge of laws, courts, war, peace, treaties, individual lives, and wealth. They maintain that this form of government is the only one that deserves the name of ‘republic’ (i.e. the property of the public); and that for this reason the republic tends to be restored to freedom from the domination of a king or a senate, whereas 48 49 kings or rich and powerful aristocrats are not summoned to take over from free peoples. They insist that the whole concept of a free people should not be rejected because of the crimes committed by an undisciplined mob. —Cicero, The Republic, bk 1. Said by Scipio.

Desiring, therefore, to discuss the nature of the government of Rome, and to ascertain the accidental circumstances which brought it to its perfection, I say, as has been said before by many who have written of Governments, that of these there are three forms, known by the names Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, and that those who give its institutions to a State have recourse to one or other of these three, according as it suits their purpose. Other, and, as many have thought, wiser teachers, will have it, that there are altogether six forms of government, three of them utterly bad, the other three good in themselves, but so readily corrupted that they too are apt to become hurtful. The good are the three above named; the bad, three others dependent upon these, and each so like that to which it is related, that it is easy to pass imperceptibly from the one to the other. For a Monarchy readily becomes a Tyranny, an Aristocracy an Oligarchy, while a Democracy tends to degenerate into Anarchy. So that if the founder of a State should establish any one of these three forms of Government, he establishes it for a short time only, since no precaution he may take can prevent it from sliding into its contrary, by reason of the close resemblance which, in this case, the virtue bears to the vice. —Niccolò Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius.

The first thing therefore they are to do, is expressly every man to consent to something, by which they may come near to their ends, which can be nothing else imaginable, but this, that they allow the wills of the major part of their whole number, or the wills of the major part of some certain number of men by them determined and named; or lastly, the will of some one man, to involve and be taken for the wills of every man. And this done, they are united, and a body politic. And if the major part of their whole number be supposed to involve the wills of all the particulars, then are they said to be a democracy, that is to say, a government wherein the whole number, or so many of them as please, being assembled together, are the sovereign, and every particular man a subject. If the major part of a certain number of men named or distinguished from the rest, be supposed to involve the wills of every one of the particulars, then are they said to be an oligarchy, or aristocracy, which two words signify the same thing, together with the divers passions of those that use them. For when the men that be in that office please, they are called an aristocracy, or otherwise an oligarchy, wherein those, the major part of which declare the wills of the whole multitude being assembled, are the sovereign, and every man severally a subject. Lastly, if their consent be such, that the will of one man, whom they name, shall stand for the wills of them all, then is their government or union called a monarchy, and that one man a sovereign, and every of the rest a subject. —Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic, Chapter 20, Section 3.

The majority having, as has been shewed, upon men’s first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy: or else may put the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors; and then it is an oligarchy: or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy: if to him and his heirs, it is an hereditary monarchy: if to him only for life, but upon his death the power only of nominating a successor to return to them; an elective monarchy. And so accordingly of these the community may make compounded and mixed forms of government, as they think good. And if the legislative power be at first given by the majority to one or more persons only for their lives, or any limited time, and then the supreme power to revert to them again; when it is so reverted, the community may dispose of it again anew into what hands they please, and so constitute a new form of government: for the form of government depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the commonwealth. —John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Chapter X.

The definition of an oligarchy is a government by a number of grandees, over whom the people have no control. The States of Holland were once chosen by the people frequently, then chosen for life; now they are not chosen by the people at all. When a member dies, his place is filled up, not by the people he is to represent, but by the States. Is not this depriving the Hollanders of a free constitution, and subjecting them to an aristocracy, or oligarchy? Will not the government of America be like it? Will not representatives be chosen for them by others, whom they never saw nor heard of? —John Adams, Novanglus, Essay No. 7.

Plato has sufficiently asserted the honor of the laws and the necessity of proper guardians of them; but has nowhere delineated the various orders of guardians, and the necessity of a balance between them. He has, nevertheless, given us premises from whence the absolute necessity of such orders and equipoises may be inferred; he has shown how naturally every simple species of government degenerates. The aristocracy, or ambitious republic, becomes immediately an oligarchy. What shall be done to prevent it? Place two guardians of the laws to watch the aristocracy,—one, in the shape of a king, on one side of it; another, in the shape of a democratical assembly, on the other side. The aristocracy become an oligarchy, changes into a democracy. How shall it be prevented? By giving the natural aristocracy in society its rational and just weight, and by giving it a regal power to appeal to, against the madness of the people. Democracy becomes a tyranny. How shall this be prevented? By giving it an able, independent ally, in an aristocratical assembly, with whom it may unite against the unjust and illegal designs of any one man. —John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, Chapter 11.

Necessities which dissolve a government, do not convey its authority to an oligarchy or a monarchy. They throw back, into the hands of the people, the powers they had delegated, and leave them as individuals to shift for themselves. A leader may offer, but not impose himself, nor be imposed on them. Much less can their necks be submitted to his sword, their breath be held at his will or caprice. The necessity which should operate these tremendous effects should at least be palpable and irresistible. Yet in both instances where it is feared, or pretended with us, it was belied by the event. It was belied too by the preceding experience of our sister States, several of whom had grappled through greater difficulties without abandoning their forms of government. —Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 13.

An oligarchy is necessarily a bad government, because its members have the means, and hence the temptation, to benefit themselves at the expense of the community. A representative government is a good government, because its members have not the means of benefiting themselves at the expense of the community, and are therefore left to the influence of the motive which all men have, to seek the good of the community of which they are a part. —The Political Writings of James Mill.

Wherever a king or an oligarchy refrains from the last extremity of rapacity and tyranny through fear of the resistance of the people, there the constitution, whatever it may be called, is in some measure democratical. The admixture of democratic power may be slight. It may be much slighter than it ought to be; but some admixture there is. Wherever a numerical minority, by means of superior wealth or intelligence, of political concert, or of military discipline, exercises a greater influence on the society than any other equal number of persons,—there, whatever the form of government may be called, a mixture of aristocracy does in fact exist. And, wherever a single man, from whatever cause, is so necessary to the community, or to any portion of it, that he possesses more power than any other man, there is a mixture of monarchy. This is the philosophical classification of governments: and if we use this classification we shall find, not only that there are mixed governments, but that all governments are, and must always be, mixed. —Thomas Babington Macaulay, Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches - Volume 2.

The state of the country fills us with anxiety and stern duties. We have attempted to hold together two states of civilization: a higher state, where labor and the tenure of land and the right of suffrage are democratical; and a lower state, in which the old military tenure of prisoners or slaves, and of power and land in a few hands, makes an oligarchy: we have attempted to hold these two states of society under one law. But the rude and early state of society does not work well with the later, nay, works badly, and has poisoned politics, public morals and social intercourse in the Republic, now for many years. —Ralph Waldo Emerson, Miscellanies of Emerson, American Civilization.

To politics throughout, Hegel applies the like catholic standard and faith. Not any one party, or any one form of government, is absolutely and exclusively true. Truth consists in the just relations of objects to each other. A majority or democracy may rule as outrageously and do as great harm as an oligarchy or despotism—though far less likely to do so. But the great evil is either a violation of the relations just referr’d to, or of the moral law. The specious, the unjust, the cruel, and what is called the unnatural, though not only permitted but in a certain sense, (like shade to light,) inevitable in the divine scheme, are by the whole constitution of that scheme, partial, inconsistent, temporary, and though having ever so great an ostensible majority, are certainly destin’d to failures, after causing great suffering. —Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works, Carlyle from American Points of View.

The Egremonts had done none of the work of the last hundred years of political mystification, during which a people without power or education, had been induced to believe themselves the freest and most enlightened nation in the world, and had submitted to lavish their blood and treasure, to see their industry crippled and their labour mortgaged, in order to maintain an oligarchy, that had neither ancient memories to soften nor present services to justify their unprecedented usurpation. —Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, Or, The Two Nations.

Aristotle meets the whole simply by an appeal to facts. If the theory of the periodic decay of all created things, he urges, be scientific, it must be universal, and so true of all the other states as well as of the ideal. Besides, a state usually changes into its contrary and not to the form next to it; so the ideal state would not change into Timocracy; while Oligarchy, more often than Tyranny, succeeds Democracy. Plato, besides, says nothing of what a Tyranny would change to. According to the cycle theory it ought to pass into the ideal state again, but as a fact one Tyranny is changed into another as at Sicyon, or into a Democracy as at Syracuse, or into an Aristocracy as at Carthage. The example of Sicily, too, shows that an Oligarchy is often followed by a Tyranny, as at Leontini and Gela. Besides, it is absurd to represent greed as the chief motive of decay, or to talk of avarice as the root of Oligarchy, when in nearly all true oligarchies money-making is forbidden by law. And finally the Platonic theory neglects the different kinds of democracies and of tyrannies. —Oscar Wilde, Essays and Lectures.

We are forced therefore to consider the nature and origin of that control of human nature with which morals has been occupied. And the fact which is forced upon us when we raise this question is the existence of classes. Control has been vested in an oligarchy. Indifference to regulation has grown in the gap which separates the ruled from the rulers. Parents, priests, chiefs, social censors have supplied aims, aims which were foreign to those upon whom they were imposed, to the young, laymen, ordinary folk; a few have given and administered rule, and the mass have in a passable fashion and with reluctance obeyed. —John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct.